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Effects of flow history on oil entrapment in porous media: An experimental study
Publikationstyp
Journal Article
Date Issued
2015-04-01
Sprache
English
Author(s)
Journal
Volume
61
Issue
4
Start Page
1385
End Page
1390
Citation
AIChE Journal 61 (4): 1385-1390 (2015-04-01)
Publisher DOI
Scopus ID
The effect of flow history on fluid phase entrapment during immiscible two-phase flow in Hele-Shaw cells packed with spherical and crushed glass beads is investigated. The wetting fluid is injected into an initially oil saturated cell at a well-defined capillary number. It is observed that the size and shape of the trapped clusters strongly depend on the history of flooding such that less oil was trapped in the medium when the injecting capillary number gradually increased to the final maximum capillary number compared to the case when the injection was started and maintained constant at the maximum capillary number. In addition, a comprehensive series of experiments were conducted to delineate the effects of the capillary number on the phase entrapment. Contrary to previously published data, our experimental data reveal that the residual oil saturation depends on capillary number nonmonotonically. A physically based relationship to scale the capillary desaturation curve is proposed.
Subjects
Capillary desaturation curve
Interfacial processes
Multiphase flow
Phase entrapment